One of the most common uses of computer systems is to display content in documents. Contemporary computer systems and programs provide great flexibility in viewing a document, including jumping to hyperlinked locations in the document, zooming in and out of the content, allowing a user to jump to a desired page by indicating a desired page number, scroll and use keyboard keys to navigate the document, and perform many other document viewing options.
However, pressing the Page Down or Page Up keyboard buttons to navigate content provides sometimes unexpected results for many viewers. More particularly, unless the zoom percentage setting and/or size of the window is coincidentally set such that an entire page is shown at once, pressing the Page Down or Page up key does not move the content a full page. Such behavior is the default experience in applications. For example, when the zoom is set such that the page is larger than the viewing area, pressing Page Down when at the top of the page does not page down an entire page, but instead shifts the content that is shown in the viewing area such that some lower portion of the current page (e.g., the bottom of the current page) is shown. At least one other Page Down key press is required to shift the view to show the top of the next page. In the opposite direction, at such a zoom percentage more than one Page Up is required to actually shift the content up an entire page.
Thus, when a user wants to consistently review a particular area of each page, for example, such as to inspect the content in each page's header or footer, the user has to use multiple key presses per page, unless the user can tolerate (and is knowledgeable enough to know to set) a zoom percentage that causes a Page Up or Page Down to jump the precise amount. For some viewers, even being close is not adequate, as the page top/bottom will gradually move in one direction as the user pages up or down. Moreover, in some situations, a relatively large zoom percentage is needed by the user, such as when the display area is relatively small and/or the content to be viewed has to be zoomed-in to a sufficient extent to properly review it. In such situations, decreasing the zoom to cause an exact one-page scroll on a Page Up or Page Down is not an option.
What is needed is an improved method and system for that allows users to navigate in precise increments when pressing the Page Up or Page Down key (or an equivalent action).